The Rants & Rambles of A Grumpy Old Dude

About

I’ve been at this blogging thing for almost nine years. I’d been given a bunch of blog-awards, and started to get more people reading my output. I noticed that a few visitors were accessing the “About” page, and there was nothing there.

If you’re truly interested, use the two links in the March 31/13 post, Awesome, or go back to my first blog in late November, 2011. I really need to compose something which explains my blog-presence and lack of police action.

I’m going to try to link in my June 19/2012, “If” blog, which explains how I got here. Whether I’m successful or not, come back in about a week, and I should have some revealing prosology.

Archon 👿

Well, the link thing didn’t work, so I’ve relied on Control-C, Control-V. This is the story. Read it and weep.

IF

If you can keep your head, while all about you are losing theirs, you probably haven’t checked with your service recently. Being short of inspiration for a blog theme, and too damned lazy to do some research, I decided to relate how I came to begin blogging. It’s not as fantastic as, “Meteor strikes housewife on head,” but the steps leading to it just kept bringing up the thought IF. You’ll see it a couple of times later.

I am a word-nut and language lover. When I was working, I used to do two crossword puzzles a day, one of them at the plant, and depending on the job, sometimes on the line. Since I retired, I have found another crossword available on-line, and now do three a day, plus six word-jumble puzzles each week. I found a word in a puzzle one day and said, “I’ll have to look that up in one of my dictionaries, when I get home.” One of your dictionaries??! How many do you have?

Had to stop and count, at least eight, ranging from a 350 page secretary’s, to two 2000 pagers. One of those was printed in 1952, and gives archaic words and British usage. The other is modern and gives American-isms and technical terms. Also possess a Roget’s Thesaurus, a dictionary thesaurus, an etymological dictionary, a word menu, two French-English, English-French translators, and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh, no! We had the partridge for dinner last week.

Searching for words could get a little time-consuming, and frustrating, so I started using the Dictionary.Com website. They print several articles a week about words, punctuation and usage, and there is a discussion thread where I soon learned to linguistically give and take. Didn’t take much. I’d like to think that 75% of the writers were in grade six or lower. That was about the level of writing. Spelling, punctuation, capitalization, word usage….all atrocious, especially for a dictionary site, but some of the posters mentioned jobs. Egad! You want fries with that?

One night I saw an ad to explain the connection between Starbucks, and a great white whale. I thought I knew what it was, but clicked it anyway. I wasn’t even paying enough attention to realize that I had left Dictionary.Com, and had been dropped at the Freshly Pressed page of WordPress. The first thing I saw was a message that the authors of this article had withdrawn it from publication. I looked the page over and saw other articles. None of them did much for me until I hit “Burrito Rage.” Being a great fan of food, and particularly TexMex, that sounded delicious, so I clicked on it.

BrainRants had been on the blogscene for a couple of months and had been put up on FreshPressed. Somehow they forgot to take him down for almost three weeks. I read Burrito Rage, and laughed my ass off, and read the comments. Then I sifted my way through his archives, and it only got better. Damn! This was nirvana. Erudite people correctly using and spelling four-syllable words. As I had on the dictionary site, I started to make comments, and Rants encouraged me to. I learned to click on his commenters and go to other, similar sites, and was enthralled.

I had only been vaguely aware of “blogging”, and didn’t even know that my daughter had recently started one up. I started gushing about all the stories, and jokes and wordplay that I was finding, and the wife and daughter decided that they had found a retirement hobby for me. I mentioned to BrainRants that the daughter was setting up a blog for me, and he graciously offered to blogroll me, as soon as it occurred. I didn’t even know exactly what a blogroll was, or what an honor was being extended to me, but I jumped at the chance. I still haven’t worked out the complexities of attaching a blogroll to my own site, but should do it soon, to honor and spread the renown of a talented group of writers and blogs which I enjoy.

Talk about taking the road less travelled! This is a road I didn’t even know existed seven months ago. This is also like the butterfly effect. Tiny chance after tiny chance after tiny chance have led me here. If even one causative factor had not followed the one before, I would have missed out on some great times with some great people.

If I had not decided to save time and energy and go digital with my dictionary. If I had not been so displeased with the quality of communication at Dictionary.Com. If I had not pursued Ahab’s white whale, Moby Dick, all the way to WordPress. If the Starbucks authors had not withdrawn their post. If BrainRants had not been FreshPressed. If any other of Rants’ posts had been selected for Pressing. If Rants had not encouraged a tongue-tied fumble-fingered yokel to join the party. Science fiction literature has been described as, The World of If, and this is so unlike the world I dwelt in up till a year ago, that it almost feels like science fiction right here on Earth.

I know that I am not as creative or exciting as most of the bloggers I follow, but every writer has a niche. Mine is quiet and sedate. I have been able to attract 35 followers, (at time of original publication) and slowly the number grows. The flair and élan of some of them make me wonder what they find in my writings, but, all of you who follow, or even just drop in to read, are a balm to my ego. I thank you all. You encourage, and make an old coot happy.

[…] here. Clearly, Canada is out to corner the market on Santa Claus. Eh? Yeah, eh. This is Archon’s ulterior motive, and plainly explains his attempt at a beard, so very obvious in his gravatar. His […]

[…] be wondering about the purpose of this post. Some say this is my feeble attempt to write like Archon, well forget that idea! Others may trace this to Oxford English Dictionary awarding Word of the […]

From one logophile to another, I have a dictionary on all electronic devices from my desktop to my iPad to my iPhone.

I’ve never been good at crossword puzzles although my mom was and my brother works them all the time. I do,however, have two games of Scrabble going between my iPhone and iPad.

You’ll feel my pain when I tell you that I work as a cake decorator in an area where English is spoken as a second language. I’m talking about folks born here. Common speech patterns include “I seen it” “can I get a cake wrote on?” and “was you doing…” and the excruciating list goes one. My ears bleed on a daily basis.

In 298 days, not counting vacations and weekends, I plan to join the ranks of the retired Geritol for lunch bunch. 😉 At that time I plan to more actively pursue my career as an author.

… in an area where English is spoken as a second language. I’m talking about folks born here….
The language I’ve grow up with is English even if somebody doesn’t like how I put my words together. If it’s just me, it’s an idiolect. If it’s a community, it’s a dialect.
‘Standard English’ is a convention for reach people without them noticing much else but the message.
“Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventative dentifrice when used in a conscientious manner …”
What language is that? MealyMouth with toothpaste?
Fie! Away and awhisk!

I’m so glad you liked my post “Desk Excavation” so that I found your blog. It’s already given me a few chuckles this morning. I’m happy to follow along in the future. (I’ll try to be careful with my grammar and spelling when I comment.)

Hi Archon and thanks for visiting my blog and liking my post recently. I love how you write. You seem to have the same warped sense of humour as me.
You make me laugh and so I am now following . Keep those laughs coming.
Dorne x

Firstly thank you so much for visiting and liking my blog. I really appreciate your doing so.
I am keen to revisit yours and read more about you. It looks fascinating.
Have a great day my friend
Luv n peas
Bob

I lost my mind when i chucked my 30 year career as a medical scientist and took up blogging. This seems to be just my kind of place. My only inhibition is will I be able to pass the English test? Fingers crossed! Btw thanks for the laughs 😀

I think you’ll like the blogosphere. I hope you’ll like my contributions. As noted above, there’s always lots of laughs – some of them even intentional. Don’t sweat the English test. I never fail anyone who might give me a colonoscopy. Welcome to the silliness. Don’t just sit there; add to it. 🙂

Oops, sorry. That’s just me being both old and silly. That particular sentence is the closing line from Jimmy Durante’s television show of the 1960s. You can click here for the Wiki article. Look in the ‘marriages’ section. I’ll try to keep my foolishness more understandable and up-to-date. 😆

I have gone awards-free, but it’s still a nice gesture, and doesn’t require a great deal of response. (My kind of award. 😆 ) I’ll try to compose an acknowledgement acceptance, and link back to your site. Thanx. See you around. 🙂

I love your enthusiasm–hope you don’t lose it 🙂 Thanks for visiting my blog, which is why I’m here 🙂 I too have numerous dictionaries, but am salivating with envy over the ones in your collection–(occasionally curse myself for tossing a bunch of old ones over the years each time I moved). And finally, I’m laughing about how you’ve not attached a blogroll–all you do is put the widget up for “Blogs I Follow”, then every time you click “Follow” on a blog you like, it automatically appears; no muss, no fuss. Have a great week, it was fun to visit your About:)

What a wonderful read! Can I admit I’m just a little jealous of the dictionary collection lol. I used to carry one everywhere with me, and even had a ‘spelling book’ – a dictionary without the definitions. What I won’t admit is how much time I spent poring through it 😉

Long time ago I read your blog. Funny to stumble upon it again. It feels a bit like a time warp. I wandered off but life continued as before here. I particularly enjoyed your blog about Ken. I love that word.

I feared that, among other reasons, my words may have driven you away. It’s great to have you return. I’d love to have you drop in again occasionally. You might like today’s post about the word Bistro. 😀

No one in blog world drove me away. I just needed to find support, companionship and fun in the real world, among people who I could look in the eye, smile upon, and enjoy in person. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed your capacity for wordplay and might just stop by from time to time. Life is very good now – glad to see yours is as well.

Oh and btw, I go married! He’s a wonderfully rare complex person. It would take a whole book of words to do him justice. Maybe a bit of bistro but vastly too simplistic a description. All the people who are drawn to him are themselves rare, talented, remarkable people. If I ever find the discipline to write that book people like you would be my target audience. I think you could appreciate that book very much.